Accurate and efficient detection of sleep spindles is a methodological challenge. The present study describes a method of using non-experts for manual detection of sleep spindles. We recruited five experts and 168 non-experts to manually identify spindles in stage N2 and stage N3 sleep data using a MATLAB interface. Scorers classified each spindle into definite and indefinite spindle (with weig...

Spindles from the gonads of five insect species were examined after conventional preparation for electron microscopy. The aim of the study was to determine (1) the range of variation of the spindle membranes between mitotic and meiotic cells and (2) the correlation of possible differences with the microtubule content of the spindles. The study involved four moth species, Ephestia kuehniella, Ph...

The Riley-Day syndrome is the most common of the hereditary sensory and autonomic neuropathies (Type III). Among the well-recognized clinical features are reduced pain and temperature sensation, absent deep tendon reflexes and a progressively ataxic gait. To explain the latter we tested the hypothesis that muscle spindles, or their afferents, are absent in hereditary sensory and autonomic neuro...

Implicit to all models for mitotic spindle assembly is the view that centrosomes are essentially permanent structures. Yet, immunofluorescence revealed that spindles in larval brains of urchin mutants in Drosophila were frequently monastral but bipolar; the astral pole contained a centrosome while the opposing anastral pole showed neither gamma tubulin nor a radial array of astral microtubules....

Processes underlying mechanotransduction and its regulation are poorly understood. Inhibitors of Ca2+-activated K+ channels cause a dramatic increase in afferent output from stretched muscle spindles. We used immunocytochemistry to test for the presence and location of small conductance Ca2+-activated K+ channels (SK1-3) in primary endings of muscle spindles and lanceolate endings of hair folli...

Two distinctly different ATPases have been reported to be endogenous to the mitotic apparatus: a Mg2+-ATPase resembling axonemal dynein, and a Ca2+-ATPase postulated to be bound in membranes. To examine the nature of the Mg2+-ATPase, we isolated membrane-free mitotic spindles from Stronglylocentrotus droebachiensis embryos by rapidly lysing these in a calcium-chelating, low-ionic-strength buffe...

Abstract The mitotic spindle is a highly dynamic bipolar structure that emerges from the self-organization of microtubules, molecular motors and other proteins. Sustained motor-driven poleward flows microtubules play key role in organization spindles. However, it not understood how local activity motor proteins generates these large-scale coherent flows. Here we show gelation transition enables...